Robert Barnes

Representative Experience

• Investigated a multi-million-dollar embezzlement case and obtained the embezzler’s agreement to a tolling agreement that was also a confession. Filed and pursued litigation that resulted in monetary settlements with two co-defendants and summary judgment against the embezzler. Obtained an FBI investigation and charges against the embezzler.
• Investigated embezzlement by an accountant and reached a settlement with regular payments, assignment of life insurance policy and contract to make a new will.
• Represented an elderly man against his brother over the family’s substantial commercial real estate holdings that the client had built up. Due to a tiny difference in their percentage shares, the brother was trying to squeeze our client out and was paying his lawyers with company funds. We sued on a number of grounds, including financial elder abuse. The litigation was bitter, we obtained disqualification of a major local law firm, and ultimately made a favorable settlement in mediation.
• Represented a member of a large, wealthy family who embezzled money from properties he controlled, which involved bitter litigation in both civil and probate courts. We repeatedly showed that the plaintiffs’ calculations were inflated and overreaching. We ultimately resolved all claims in a way that allowed our client to pay the amount that he owed without forfeiting his ownership interests and without paying the additional sums the family demanded and might have been awarded in probate litigation.
• Represented trustee against siblings who had stolen money from the estate before the mother died. Matter was resolved by credit against their shares prior to distribution.
• Represented developer client in complicated encroachment lawsuit involving illegal fire doors and nightclubs in Hollywood that were only open at night when Building and Safety would not do inspections. Ultimately settled case and resolved encroachments so that client’s adjacent development project could proceed.
• Represented siblings who inherited a very valuable home in the Pacific Palisades versus a developer buyer who had fallen out of escrow and filed suit to tie up the property. Defended litigation from buyer and ultimately resolved in mediation with buyer paying enough more for the property to cover seller’s substantial attorney’s fees.
• Represented siblings who inherited a valuable condominium in the Wilshire corridor in a dispute with a buyer who claimed he also was entitled to be conveyed a separate unit on the ground floor. We asserted claims against the brokers, escrow and title company. Favorably resolved in mediation.
• Represented seller of luxury home against defaulting buyer who was trying to renegotiate (seller saw it as a matter of principle), obtained judgment in an arbitration, and ultimately recovered all seller’s legal fees.
• Represented client regarding commercial property located in the City of Pasadena that was severely threatened by overgrown trees, including roots growing into the building itself. Obtained engineering reports and photographs to support two petitions for the removal and replacement of the trees that were opposed by citizen groups. Filed litigation against the city and ultimately worked with the city attorney to reach a resolution that was accepted by the city council and allowed the trees to be removed and replaced by client, even though protesters were chaining themselves to the trees and tried to file a last minute CEQA suit.
• Sued title insurance company and resolved complicated title insurance issue concerning location of ingress and egress easement with substantial payment from title insurance company.
• Represented brother and sister who inherited commercial building that was 50% owned with father’s former business partner and leased to his business. Surviving owner had given his company a sweetheart lease and was not providing the amounts due our clients’ mother before she passed. Located appraiser familiar with the area and local landowners to provide appraisal opinions regarding current value and appropriate rental rates for the prior periods. Ultimately resolved the matter by selling the building, with our clients receiving a larger share of the proceeds.
• Ongoing representation of development LLC from multiple specious claims by minority investor who wanted a larger share of sales proceeds of the property and has filed multiple lawsuits. Ultimately obtained dismissal of all the lawsuits and now are representing the LLC in the investor’s appeals. We expect that the Court of Appeal will affirm the court decisions below or dismiss the appeals.
• Represented limited partnership against long-term tenant of an entire building who fell behind during Covid and was interfering with sale or lease to a new tenant. Resolved by a settlement that involved payments over time (that were made) and freed up the property for sale, which was sold at a substantial profit.
• Resolved dispute between contractor and client by compromising the amount demanded and obtaining removal of mechanic’s lien which we showed had been wrongfully recorded.
• Represented part of family and ultimately resolved dispute amongst siblings who inherited large estate, a successful company supplying parts for commercial airlines, and a farm. Assisted in the sale of the company then successfully defended claims from the buyer of the company after the aviation market changed.
• Represented and resolved through mediation a dispute between a mother and her daughter who was raised as her sister and together owned a successful business 50/50. Although their relationship was re-established for a time, they ultimately fell out again and went to arbitration with a poor result for everyone.
• Represented stunt driver and resolved dispute with his partner that included obtaining control of their company and their real property.
• Represented client in dispute with family member involving major Democratic fundraising business, including disputes at Board meetings and an employment dispute. Ultimately resolved favorably with family member leaving the business.
• Represented large real estate company in dispute over a contract regarding the terms of loans it made so the other parties (large low incoming housing syndicators and developers) could pay fines they had agreed to pay under a consent decree with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Oversaw thirty (30) day trial, via Zoom®, and substantial post-trial motion work and appellate practice.
• Worked with psychiatric clinic to establish new employment rules and to effect termination of employees with a release of client.
• Prepared form for a complicated executive employment contract for a client to use, customize for each hiring thereafter and negotiate termination of employees as needed.
• Represent very successful real estate agent in and settle dispute with broker/employer over among other things, repayment of a signing loan.
• Represent a doctor’s group in litigation with a former partner regarding compensation and his being forced out of the group. Set up claim and obtained insurance coverage from broker’s carrier because insurance broker had not tendered the dispute correctly, which provided the funds for settlement with the doctor.
• Represented lawyer vis-a-vis his firm and a third-party lawyer at a national firm with whose wife client had an affair. Investigated and stopped anonymous defamatory and threatening communications which were being sent to client’s law firm and his wife. Resolved in a way that all dissension stopped.
• Designed a new employment program for a client in the apparel industry with several businesses and both factory and executive employees it believed it could not control. Interviewed many employees, wrote a new handbook, prepared new forms, instituted new timekeeping procedures, and rolled out the program to different groups of employees, including with a Spanish translator to explain the new program to the factory employees. The entire atmosphere at the company changed.
• Represented an avocado ranch in San Luis Obispo in a wage and hour dispute that was favorably resolved via mediation.
• Resolved a number of employment lawsuits and claims against a large regional liability insurance broker without payment.
• Resolved all personnel issues for Resch Polster & Berger LLP for over 25 years without litigation as the firm’s general counsel.
• Resolved dispute involving breaches and abandonment of lease for large hospital building. Removed $16 million of mechanic’s liens that the former tenant left on the building.
• Handled and resolved through mediation a dispute between a hospital and its landlord over layout of parking, parking spaces, parking costs, and management of parking lot, by amending the lease to provide a negotiated solution to revamp the lot.
• Represented man with paranoid schizophrenia who had been released improperly from a locked facility with no medicine, no follow-up and no money, by a psychiatrist who wanted to teach him a lesson. The man disappeared for some weeks, and his illness and condition were much worse when found. The doctor rejected our efforts to reach an early and low-cost settlement and receive more education on dealing with such patients. We filed for financial abuse of a dependent adult as well as malpractice. After defeating summary judgment in two hearings, we resolved the matter in mediation for much more than the California limits on medical malpractice claims. The doctor will always have to report the matter going forward.
• Leveraged a lawyer’s malpractice policy to help pay for settlement of dispute between two doctors who had used that lawyer to prepare their corporate documents and buy-sell agreement.
• Leveraged national firm’s malpractice exposure to help pay for settlement of dispute between two oral surgeons arising out of agreement law firm had prepared.
• Represented law professor whose owned property with his family that was leased to 7/11, which pulled defense of a slip and fall case on the eve of trial. The law firm defending the action had numerous ethical violations which we outlined as part of a negotiated resolution by which the law firm continued defending the case for no cost to the client and ultimately obtained a favorable resolution to the underlying matter.
• Represented large regional liability insurance broker in lawsuits pending in federal courts in South Carolina and New Orleans with insurance companies whose policies he sold. Both were favorably resolved in separate mediations.
• Represented international businessman who arranged loans in a California lawsuit brought by a Dutch national that we had court compel international arbitration in London before a QC arbitrator. Based on plaintiff’s testimony that he had not actually suffered all the damages he claimed, which was a crime under British law, we settled the matter for a walk away.
• Represented electronic retailer in a bet the company matter that was ultimately settled very favorably by reaching out to other shareholders of plaintiff in a bankruptcy that the plaintiff was forced into.
• Represented an electronic retailer in a design patent case in which we reduced potential damages of $30 million to at most a $250,000 exposure. Prepared for jury trial, but the insurance company settled the case.